PolyBase in SQL Server 2016 | Data Exposed

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This week's episode of Data Exposed welcomes Sahaj Saini, Program Manager on the SQL Server team. Today, Sahaj joins us from our southern California office to show us an exciting new feature of SQL Server 2016 called PolyBase. PolyBase simplifies management and querying of both relational and non-relational data using T-SQL.

Sahaj starts by providing the background of why PolyBase was introduced in SQL Server 2016 to support the increasing volume of non-relational data that land in cost-effective storage systems and high-scale data processing systems such as Hadoop. The goal with PolyBase in SQL Server 2016 is to expand the reach of SQL Server to these external data stores using known technologies and languages.

Sahaj then walks us through the architecture and key capabilities of PolyBase in SQL Server 2016, including the ability to do ad-hoc queries on Hadoop data and the ability to import data from Hadoop and Azure Storage to SQL Server for persistent storage.

We wrap up the show with an excellent demo from Sahaj illustrating how easy it is to work with data in Hadoop through SQL Server 2016. Great introduction to PolyBase in SQL Server 2016. More videos to come on this topic!